Section 17 Notice under the Freedom of Information Act 2000

WITHHOLDING INFORMATION

Section 21 states Information accessible to applicant by other means.

(1) Information which is reasonably accessible to the applicant otherwise than under section 21 is exempt information.

(2) For the purposes of subsection (1)— (a) Information may be reasonably accessible to the applicant even though it is accessible only on payment, and (b) Information is to be taken to be reasonably accessible to the applicant if it is information which the public authority or any other person is obliged by or under any enactment to communicate (otherwise than by making the information available for inspection) to members of the public on request, whether free of charge or on payment.

(3) For the purposes of subsection (1), information which is held by a public authority and does not fall within subsection (2) (b) is not to be regarded as reasonably accessible to the applicant merely because the information is available from the public authority itself on request, unless the information is made available in accordance with the authority’s publication scheme and any payment required is specified in, or determined in accordance with, the scheme.

Section 21 is an absolute exemption which means there is no requirement to carry out a public interest test if the requested information is exempt.

Section 40(2) – Personal Data Relating To Third Parties

The information you have requested contains personal data. Personal data can only be released if to do so would not contravene any of the data protection principles as outlined in Data Protection Act 2018 and set out by Article 5 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

Personal data shall be processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner We believe releasing the requested information into the public domain would be unfair to the individuals concerned; these individuals have a clear and strong expectation that their personal data will be held in confidence and not disclosed to the public under the FOI Act.